GUEST COLUMN: "A communal clean-up"

David Slarskey will be mending fences with the community this weekend during Spring Cleaning - and theyu want your help. It's finally springtime, although the weather might not be admitting that yet. With the increasing temperatures and melting snow, our streets dissolve from pure white serenity into treacherous paths marred by mud and garbage. Flyers from last September, bags from Billybob, your English thesis (so that's where it was!) and various other indistinguishable "old friends" rise up from their wintry graves and declare their freedom. We say: "Shackle this trash! Send it back to prison! Do not allow the control of our streets to be wrested from you!" Spring Cleaning is, however, much more than just a day of picking up trash and getting to know the neighborhood better. It is an activity designed and planned by students, to stress our personal responsibility to the community in which we live. Although most of us only spend a short time in West Philadelphia, many years of students' loud parties and poor property upkeep have taken their toll on the community. Many students do not know that the neighborhood just west of campus is filled with decent professionals and families. It is not an urban jungle, as many of us believe. The Spruce Hill community extends from 40th to 46th streets and from Baltimore Avenue to Walnut Street. Historically, this area was one of Philadelphia's first suburbs -- a wealthy neighborhood when it grew up on the outskirts of Center City. Take a walk down the streets of Spruce Hill, and it is impossible not to notice how beautiful many of the houses are. More adventurous students will also attest to the unique shops and personalities that are located just blocks from campus. This is not the dangerous, crime-ridden war zone whose vision is inculcated into our heads from the very second we arrive at the University. Instead, this is a community with a rich, diverse past and future, thriving to this very day. Spruce Hill, like its not-always-friendly neighbor Penn, is dealing with the problems that are affecting all modern urban areas in the 1990s. Crime is as much of a concern to permanent West Philadelphian residents as it is to us. Unfortunately, in our cries to the University for better safety, more police and more guns, we often ignore how our very transient presence is a major contributor to the West Philadelphia's decay. By patronizing slum tenants, allowing the properties to fall into disrepair, and discarding trash mindlessly in the streets, we students advertise to criminals that we do not care about our community. If we truly intend to improve the safety of our campus and surroundings, we must join forces with the broader community. In other words, we must tackle the challenge of simply being good neighbors. This Saturday, permanent community members from Spruce Hill -- families with children, young adults, professors -- will undertake their annual Spring Cleaning event. And for the first time, students will participate, too. Together, we and other community members will engage in neighborhood beautification, including flower planting, tree care, trash pick-up and graffiti removal. This is an opportunity for us to begin to create a neighborhood in which we feel comfortable living. In the process, students and other community members will have a chance to recognize and learn about each other. We will also discuss issues of common concern, such as crime, landlord monopolization and relations between the University and the community. Most importantly, Saturday's event should serve as a springboard for further partnerships and programming between students and the surrounding community. By coming out to clean up on Saturday, students will be making a tangible investment in our community's future. Instead of complaining about our campus being located in the middle of a crime-ridden abyss, we will join with our neighbors to keep our neighborhood clean and less of an attraction for crime. We'll be looking for interested volunteers at 4052 Spruce, near the corner of 41st and Spruce streets. Hope to see you there!

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